The Wrestling Doctor 10.07.08: It Is Not The Size Of the PPV That Matters

THIS WEEK’S PATIENT: NO MERCY AND A BETTER PPV

Sunday’s No Mercy was a big show for the WWE storyline wise, as over the last two years this event has signaled the slow rise to Wrestlemania. The early October WWE pay-per-view has traditionally hosted some significant moments – such as the inaugural Hell-A-Cell match between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels at the 1997 Badd Blood, the Edge/Christian vs. The Hardys ladder match at the first No Mercy in 1999, and the 2002 WWE Tag Team Title tournament final between Edge/Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle/Chris Benoit. Largely, however, No Mercy has been a lackluster show, from its Attitude era run through its time as a Smackdown exclusive.

Last year’s version of No Mercy appeared equally unremarkable until the week before, when John Cena went down with his bicep injury and the show was rebuilt around the filling of the vacant WWE Title. The angle between Randy Orton and Triple H that played out over the course of the show resulted in six months of solid booking around the Age of Orton.

This year’s No Mercy should have continued the event’s tradition of killing time in between Summerslam and the Survivor Series, but once the line-up was announced it was the most stacked WWE pay-per-view since Wrestlemania. The Chris Jericho-Shawn Michaels ladder match and the Triple H-Jeff Hardy WWE Title match sat atop an under card that – on paper – certainly trumped Summerslam and anything else that the WWE has offered since April. On paper is the key phrase, since it is the line-up that sells the show; the actual action only gets judged by the customer once the money has already been the paid.

The show on paper and the show on television were two very different products. No Mercy had good moments – including two excellent main events – but the rest of the card was nothing more than average. This factor exposes a long-standing problem that many fans have with WWE pay-per-view in general: these events seem too much like Raw or Smackdown and not enough like pay-per-view. There is too much stuff crammed into three hours. The main event matches get a decent amount of time, but the other bouts are given the same four to eight minutes that they would receive on any pedestrian episode of Raw or Smackdown.

Seven matches on a pay-per-view may not seem like a lot a first glance. The WWE has so far averaged seven matches a PPV in 2008, while in 2007 they averaged eight matches a show up through No Mercy (I did not count the Royal Rumble since that show must have fewer matches, nor did I count Wrestlemania because of the extra hour). These numbers do not count talent contests, career announcements, beer drinking competitions, lingerie shows, confrontations, promos, and other demonstrations that usually take up more time than is allotted for the Intercontinental or US Titles. I figured up in my July 1 column that the average WWE non-main event / non-Shawn Michaels pay-per-view match is approximately eight-and-a-half minutes long. That time is significantly shorter than most weekly ECW main events and just slightly above what you would get on Mondays and Fridays.

Look at Sunday’s night pay-per-view. Beth Phoenix and Candice Michelle were given almost the same time to the second that they got at last year’s No Mercy when The Glamazon initially claimed the WWE Women’s Title (2007 – 4:32 | 2008 – 4:30). Both women have certainly improved over the last year – especially Phoenix, who has gone from a good to great wrestler – and they could have used four or five more minutes to differentiate this bout from any Raw Women’s title defense. Candice’s full history of injury and botched spots may have persuaded the suits not to take a risk on too much time, but if such is this case the match should never have been booked on pay-per-view. I would say take a chance on Candice Michelle and let them have near ten minutes to put on a match worthy of something more than second-quarter hour status. Instead, we got the same fare that we see in every week’s divas segment.

The ECW Title match once again got less than 10 minutes. Limited time is not a bad thing with Mark Henry involved, but Matt Hardy seems to be able to coax an entertaining match out of the World’s Strongest Man. Four to six additional minutes would not have been bad, and would have distinguished the match from any of their standard Tuesday night bouts.

Batista vs. JBL was a case where a match being allotted only five minutes is a blessing, but if the WWE was only going to give the bout that much time then they should have not included it on the PPV in the first place. They could have thrown C.M. Punk into the mix to make a more dollar-worthy top contender’s match instead of wasting him on the MVP-Orton promo, but really his addition would have been nothing new. Better yet, they could have left this angle off of the pay-per-view altogether. The Batista-JBL confrontation over who gets Jericho next is something that could have easily be determined on Raw, with the winner observing the ladder match in high-profile fashion (similar to how Sid Vicious watched the 1995 Summerslam Michaels-Razor Ramon ladder match). Batista gains no more momentum from the five minute No Mercy win over JBL than he would have from a five-minute victory on the heavily-hyped September 29 Raw or the win he did get on last night’s episode. Jericho’s involvement as referee was much more effective in building up the Cyber Sunday title match than the No Mercy bout could ever be.

The biggest Raw-like moment of No Mercy was the MVP-Randy Orton-Priceless promo in the middle of the show. I grant you that it continued to build the tense alliance between the Legend Killer and the other second-generation stars while giving MVP, Punk, and Kofi Kingston something to do. However, all of this could have been accomplished even better last night on Raw or on last Friday’s special Smackdown. In either case the segment would have been seen by more fans overall and not just by the folks who forked over $40-$50 for No Mercy. The fans are not going to forget who Orton, Priceless, and Punk are Monday to Monday. More importantly, the fans who did purchase No Mercy are not going to forget that a substantial amount of the time they paid for was devoted to the same Orton-centric promo they get in the opening segment of any free Raw.

My solution to the WWE PPV glut is to have six-match pay-per-views. The WWE tried this approach with the return to multi-brand monthly pay-per-view at the 2007 Backlash, but quickly abandoned the concept despite putting on a very solid show. Six matches a PPV does require that some talent be left off of each event, but those exclusions would result in more varied and unique under cards over the course of a year. No one needs to appear on fourteen PPVs a year to stay in people’s minds, despite what Triple H has probably told Vince.

Another huge advantage to six-match pay-per-views is that the WWE can stretch angles out over longer periods of time without the pressure of having to conclude most storylines at every monthly PPV. This approach would essentially revive a big advantage that the brand-exclusive PPVs gave to the writers.

Using the six-match approach, Sunday’s No Mercy could have looked like this (with approximate adjusted match times):
Hardy vs. Henry (13:00)
Phoenix vs. Michelle (10:00)
Kane vs. Mysterio (14:00)
Undertaker vs. Big Show (16:00)
Triple H vs. Hardy (28:00)
Jericho vs. Michaels (25:00)

No Mercy had 80 minutes of wrestling for 180 minutes of air time; the above times make 106 of the 180 minutes into wrestling. I do not think that Jericho and Michaels could have gone much longer in the ladder match, but Triple H and Jeff Hardy certainly could have built more of a story with ten more minutes.

Your cable bill is the same every month whether you watch Raw or not. The WWE can get away with prolonged promos and Batista-JBL craptaculars there, but for an additional forty to fifty dollars per pay-per-view I do think it is unreasonable to demand action and angle resolution that you cannot see anywhere else. The Monday Night Wars died long ago, and the WWE has no reason to be looking over its shoulder. If they lose ratings, it is because of what they are offering, and not because of what another wrestling company is doing.

I would like to see a similar approach from TNA as well. With a PPV every month, they do not need to have the Prince Justice Brotherhood or Rock-N-Rave Infection on more than one or two shows a year. TNA regularly puts on nine match PPVs with main events clocking in at less than fifteen minutes, and such an approach is a complete waste of their tremendous talent.